UK's Supreme Court greenlights Twitter usage

Highest Court in The Land

The BBC had a great documentary about the UK Supreme Court the other night. I came away from it with a far greater respect and appreciation for the justices.

wtf ?

A sensible, measured forward looking judgement from a UK court. I must be dreaming.

The higher the court, the more arcane the arguments

The juicy stuff in a trial goes on in the lower courts where all sorts of information is input in to a case.

One case I remember centred on the word 'may' as in "if you find there is insufficient evidence you MAY find the accused not guilty". This word went through several levels of appeal and ended up in the Canadian Supreme Court where is was decided that MAY doesn't mean the same as MUST.

Case dismissed!

Interesting to the legal profession but as boring as hell to the public - except the accused.

The higher the court, the more arcane the arguments

The arguments used in court can be arcane, particularly when the case is about a narrow technical interpretation. However, sometimes the judgements are about broader principles.

For example, I offer the summary of R v Chaytor and others: http://www.supremecourt.gov.uk/docs/UKSC_2010_0195_ps.pdf where at issue is the limits of parliamentary privilege provided by the Bill of Rights.

court tweets

But did he, like, tweet the decision? I mean, talking about setting a realistic precedent...

Glenn